Friday, February 5, 2010

Weaker than expected employment numbers, but there's some good news

The headline from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is that payrolls shrunk by 20,000 versus an expected increase of 15,000. The market looks to open up a bit though, as futures suggest a higher open.

Again, I find fault with an unemployment rate falling even as actual payrolls fall. In addition to the January decline, December was revised down to a loss of -150k versus the reported -85k. November however, was revised higher.

Also not good is the continued increase in the long-term unemployed...

However, the one thing I DO like is that they finally stopped dropping people from the labor force! That number is much less "malleable" that the rest of the BLS data, so if anything it makes the numbers more credible.

Another positive is the increase in the "participation rate" - hey it's always good when more are chipping in!